Shocking jockey robots

800Px-Robot Jockey Army

Here's another "news from the future"...

...Dubai police have confirmed they uncovered a gang of dealers who were selling electric stun gun kits, for up to £5,000, across the region. These were then being fitted inside the robot jockeys... The electric shocks could be administered by remote control to encourage the camel to run faster.
I had heard of these robots before (not the stun gun part) but seeing this recent story led me to research the robots a bit.

Robotcameljockey

A robot jockey is commonly used on camels in camel racing as a replacement for human jockeys. Developed since 2004, the robotic jockeys are slowly phasing out the use of human jockeys... The government of Qatar initiated development of the robots at the beginning of 2001. The first successful model was made in 2003 by Stanely in co-ordination with Rashid Ali Ibrahim from the Qatar Scientific Club. At the end of 2003, the design, with a revised analysis, was tendered to Swiss robotics firm K-Team. Initial problems faced by the design team, led by Alexandre Colot, included the fact that the camels were conditioned to the use of human jockeys. Early designs confused or frightened the camels. The designs were modified to include more human-like features, including a mannequin-like face, sunglasses, hats, racing silks and even traditional perfumes used by human jockeys


In the USA we have the "Triple Crown Races" - The Kentucky Derby, The Preakness Stakes and The Belmont Stakes. But, I was unable to find any effort to replace horse jockeys with robots, however - there does appear some effort replacing the horses with robots (video above). I think I'd like to see more humans ride robots...


Someone had to ride Big Dog already.

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Source: http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2011/01/shocking_jockey_robots.html

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Hologram demo using Kinect

From New Scientist [via Boing Boing]:

The holographic images are still rather fuzzy. But just a couple of months after the first demonstration of holographic telepresence, the frame rate has jumped a factor of 30, from one frame every two seconds to an impressive 15 frames per second.


Michael Bove's group at the MIT Media Lab achieved the feat by hacking the camera sensor from a Kinect gesture-recognition system for Microsoft's Xbox 360 and crunching data with standard graphics chips.To give their demonstration extra flair, graduate student Edwina Portocarrero dressed up as Princess Leia from Star Wars and recreated the famous holographic projection of a plea for help from the movie.

Kinect used to create holographic video of Princess Leia


More:

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Source: http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2011/01/hologram_demo_using_kinect.html

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100' programmable LED hall lighting

ChArLeS from Cambridge, MA, wrote in to share this awesome hall lighting setup consisting of 1,600 LEDs:

Here's yet another random electroninjutsu project from MIT undergrads. Several years ago, First East hall at MIT built the famous LED Disco Dance Floor over one week during our January Independent Activities month. Now, in the course of one week*end*, this programmable hall lighting system was put together. The group soldered over 200 (custom designed) boards each with multiple colored LEDs and a driver chip.

[Note to those concerned about such things, the music accompanying the video is somewhat risqué.]

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Source: http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2011/01/100_programmable_led_hall_lighting.html

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Now you can play Shinobi III on your iPhone

Sega has released another Genesis/Mega Drive classic to the App Store, and it continues to be exactly as good an idea as it was every other time. Today's sad reminder of how great Genesis games are when you can control them is Shinobi III: Return of the Ninja Master, a side-scrolling action game originally released in 1993.

The iPhone version is available today for $2.99. If you'd like button-ful options, it's also available on Steam, the Wii Virtual Console, in Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection for Xbox 360 and PS3, and the Sega Genesis Collection for PSP and PS2.

JoystiqNow you can play Shinobi III on your iPhone originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 28 Jan 2011 04:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.joystiq.com/2011/01/28/now-you-can-play-shinobi-iii-on-your-iphone/

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Watch the NGP 'concept video'

Weren't able to attend the PlayStation Meeting in Japan? Don't worry. You can watch the concept video that introduced the world to the PSP2 NGP right after the break.

Continue reading Watch the NGP 'concept video'

JoystiqWatch the NGP 'concept video' originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 27 Jan 2011 02:55:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.joystiq.com/2011/01/27/watch-the-ngp-concept-video/

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